


Life's a Fact

by shopfront



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Canon Divergence - No Children, F/M, Feelings Realization, Getting Back Together, Post-Canon, Returning Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-26 06:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: Blair has spent a very happy decade living and having adventures all over the world. Yet when the shit hits the fan in her personal life, she finds herself hearing the siren call of New York. But she doesn't expect to find a familiar face there, or that they might be the one to make the city feel like home again.





	Life's a Fact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



> Title quoted from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
> 
>  
> 
> _Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness._

It only takes three weeks after she decides to return to New York for Blair’s publicist to suggest she write a book; one about life in Paris, fashion, the Waldorf legacy — and of course The Divorce. If she’s honest with anyone (and she’s not, not even Serena, not about this) she expected it to take something more in the realm of three days.

She demurs appropriately, of course. ‘Do I look like the slovenly book writing sort to you, Clarence? No, no I do not. I am an _editor_.’

When it takes him another week to suggest hiring Blair a ghost writer, Blair’s a little disappointed in him. But Clarence’s usual saving grace moment follows immediately after, when he swears he’s already found the perfect writer and they’ll even be ready to meet Blair the day after she lands. Which is a relief, because Blair’s had enough of making important decisions for at least another year and she’s always been able to trust Clarence’s judgement. His carefully concealed - but not _too_ carefully - opinion of Chuck had been the final nail in her marital coffin.

He promises her wit and sarcasm and a true understanding of beauty and art, with just a dash of upper class social standing. High enough to understand her world, low enough that they’re sufficiently in need of the pay-check to be trusted. Blair can edit any grievous errors in the manuscript’s understanding of the Upper East Side, anyway; what she really needs is an artist to give her the right clay to work with.

All of which means it takes approximately three minutes after arriving at The Modern for Blair to curse every impulse she ever had to relocate not just Clarence but also her assistant, her household staff, and all the other usually competent, delightfully accented individuals who worked for her in Europe and were willing to move to America with her. Apparently she's only surrounded herself by fools.

“Humphrey,” she says. The name feels stiff and unwieldy in her mouth as she stares down her nose at the table she’s been led to by the waiter.

“Blair,” Dan returns with a nod. He doesn’t stir a whisker from his casual slouch across some of the finest dining chairs New York has to offer. His hair looks just as ridiculous as always, and Blair stifles a sigh as she carefully slides into the open seat opposite him. Just when everything had seemed so fresh and new in New York, too.

After insisting Clarence was only meant to have scheduled a quick meet and greet - ‘really Humphrey, you think I’d let anyone on my staff manage the hiring for something of this importance without me screening their choices?’ - Blair had hightailed it out of there as soon as feasibly possible without being outright rude.She was fairly sure it had still been a little bit rude, anyway. Blair really did try harder these days to avoid unnecessary offence but sometimes it couldn't be helped. At least Humphrey’s knowing look and slow smirk at her excuses had reassured her that he was entirely unconcerned by potential impropriety.

If she had glanced back from the door and caught him running his hand roughly through his ridiculous mop and looking pale, his eyes averted from her exit, well. That was neither here nor there. She could have easily misunderstood the expression on his face from a distance.

“I am so sorry,” she announces loudly from the backseat of a cab as soon as Serena picks up her cell. “I just accidentally had lunch with Humphrey. But it’s not my fault! And really, it was more like pre-lunch drinks and a quick snack. Which I can’t entirely be blamed for because I have missed the food at The Modern intensely, which is something Clarence knows full well. So really this is entirely on his head, not mine.”

The silence from the other end of the line continues for so long that Blair pulls her phone away from her face to check whether the call has failed to connect. But no, Serena’s brilliant candid snap smile is still gazing back at her from above the active call button.

“Serena? Hello? Say something!”

“... I don’t know what to say,” Serena finally responds, but to Blair’s relief her voice is infused with laughter and confusion. “Do you mean my Dan? Only, I thought you said you were going to stay in New York for awhile.”

“What? Of course I’m staying in New York,” Blair replies. She furrows her brow and resists the urge to double check a second time that she’s called the right person. “Humphrey might be... Humphrey. But he’s no Chuck Bass, and I won’t be run off my home turf by a little awkward chit chat.”

“I didn’t realise he’d gone back to- Never mind, so what’s the problem?”

Blair splutters. “What’s the problem? I fully expect you to shun Chuck at every family gathering, Serena! It’s only fair that-”

“Hey, Blair?” Serena interrupts. “Be nice. Please. For me?”

Blair’s mouth drops open and she stares blankly out the window at the other traffic on Fifth Avenue.

“I’m serious,” Serena continues in a rush. “Our break up wasn’t the same as yours was with Chuck. Dan- he wouldn’t take anything in the divorce, and I guess I still worry about him. I thought he left Brooklyn because it was too- But he’s back and that’s really great news, so be nice to him for me. Okay?”

Still stumped, Blair tries and fails to form a response as she watches her reflection gape stupidly back at her from the car window. “I suppose I could,” she finally chokes out, reluctant and hoping Serena isn’t really asking what Blair thinks she is. “If you’re sure-”

“Yes, please! Anything you can do to help him settle back in would be great. Thanks so much Blair, you’re the best,” Serena gushes, confirming all her fears in one fell swoop. Blair can easily picture the sunny gratefulness that would be beaming her way if they were actually having this conversation face to face, and can already feel her resolve melting away before it. Distantly she registers that Serena has continued talking, and her tone has switched from loaded concern to something more sly and prying. “So, why exactly were you having drinks with Dan, anyway? Wait, wait, wait. Don’t tell me. Blair Waldorf, are you finally letting Clarence arrange some of those blind dates he keeps offering to set you up on?!”

Relieved about the change of topic, Blair makes a rude noise and rolls her eyes as she relaxes back in her seat with a huff. “Don’t be ridiculous, Serena. As if I need help getting a date. It was just a little business meeting. We need, well, a writer, just to do a few small things. But Clarence seems to be under the heavily mistaken impression that Humphrey met our criteria, so now I’ll have to-”

“Blair!”

“Alright, alright,” Blair replies quickly, caving shamelessly in hope of avoiding a resurgence of discussing all things Humphrey even as she fights back a smile. “I know. I’ll be nice, I promise.”

Serena’s laugh rings down the line like a bell. “Sure you will. Look, I’ve gotta run. Just don’t make me get on a plane and come up there to check you two are behaving yourselves!”

Blair makes an outraged noise over the implication that she has such little self-control, and Serena sing-songs her way through more teasing before they hang up. Once they’ve said their goodbyes and disconnected, Blair returns to gazing out the car window. Running a finger idly across her bottom lip, she sighs and toys with her phone for a moment. Then she flicks open her email and begins to type.

*

It didn’t take Clarence long to set up the second Great Waldorf-Humphrey Meet and Greet for Blair. The speed with which Humphrey had apparently accepted the invitation despite their frosty reunion did make Blair wonder. Perhaps Serena had been right about it being odd of Dan to be back in town, though Blair sets that thought aside as soon as it arises. Whatever’s going on isn’t any of her business. They just have a book to write. Instead of dwelling, she signs the appropriate paperwork as soon as her assistant brings it to her and tries to pretend it’s like any other hiring decision.

She only pauses for a moment to brush her fingers across Humphrey’s name already scribbled in familiar, messy script at the bottom of the contract before instructing that the final copy not be sent to Humphrey just yet. She doesn’t let her little lapse encourage her to use tact later that afternoon, though. As soon as he drops into the seat across from her, Blair launches straight into battle mode.

“Why on earth are you ghostwriting instead of working on your own ideas!” she cries, waving one hand wildly above her head in outrage.

Humphrey’s a little wide-eyed, but his lips are twitching - which Blair doesn’t appreciate. “Some of us do still need to worry about paying rent, Blair.”

Blair gives him her best unimpressed glare. “Oh, how witty you are,” she snipes back as she nudges a plate and mug across the table towards him. It’s probably a little late in the day for coffee, but she’s fairly sure writer’s are meant to mainline caffeine at all hours. Besides, Humphrey hadn’t complained about their second meeting being in a cafe anymore than he had the speed of it. “As if I couldn't possibly begin to understand the importance of financial responsibility. That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“What can I say? Something about _Inside_ lead people to believe that the only thing I’m good for is inflaming scandalous rumours about rich people,” he replies dryly without missing a beat. “And I really did mean it when I said I have bills to pay.”

Thrown off by getting a direct answer so easily, Blair doesn’t protest when he scoots his chair further around the table so they’re huddled closer together in the corner. Even when it causes a hair-raising screech of chair legs scraping along the floor. Instead, she watches him watch her for a moment before he takes in the matching plates of croissants on the table and the oversized mug before her that holds her frankly enormous hot chocolate. She sees the table through his eyes for a moment, and it looks even more ridiculous in comparison to Humphrey’s perfectly normal sized coffee.

“I didn’t take you for a gallons of coffee at-,” he starts to say, pausing to look at his watch. His shoulder brushes against Blair’s when he brings his wrist up to table height, which Blair resolutely ignores even though she shivers a little at the touch. “-Four thirty six in the afternoon person anymore.”

Blair narrows her eyes for a second, but Humphrey just smiles and quirks an eyebrow at her. His expression is the picture of curiosity, and not at all mocking. “I'm not,” she finally answers with a sniff before carefully eyeing the other customers around them for eavesdroppers. “Don’t try and distract me, Humphrey. If I’m going to trust you with this… project, I need to know that it’s going to have your undivided attention.”

The happy, pleasant look drops from Humphrey’s face, and his expression clouds a little. But he doesn’t argue, he just leans back in his seat as if he needs to put some space back between them. “I’ll be all yours. Serena probably told you that I tried out a few things over the years. Unfortunately different work didn’t really sell well,” he explains, staring at the tabletop.

He picks up a sugar packet from beside his drink as he talks, turning it over and over in his long fingers. Not that Blair’s watching. She’s completely focused on his face and on trying to suss out all the things Serena apparently hasn’t said over the years. Though she is starting to realise that Serena had been close-lipped during the split and, promise or no promise about being nice, it left Blair at a loss. Filtering friend from foe in the strange new world that was returning home alone on the wrong side of thirty was already hard enough, she didn't need surprises about Humphrey on top of it.

Humphrey doesn't seem to notice her distraction. “Don’t get me wrong, I could have kept finding interesting things to write about the Upper East Side if I'd wanted to. Deeply flawed people are great inspiration, and everyone around here is more than a little messed up.”

Blair snorts and covers it with a cough as she wraps her hands around the comforting warmth of her mug.

“But I guess I didn’t want to reinforce this idea everybody in publishing seems to have that all I can do is dish dirt. Maybe they really do think it's uniquely written or themed like they always claim, but it’s still just more dirt,” he continues, finally looking up again to give her a grim smile. “Of course, that sort of idealism doesn’t exactly produce an endless stream of career opportunities either, or-”

“Pay the bills,” Blair finishes quietly. Humphrey just nods, and they settle into a comfortable silence as Blair sips at her drink and watches Humphrey’s sugar packet grow a little ragged around the edges. “Have you thought about-”

“Using another pen name?” Humphrey finishes for her. “Sure. But, I don’t know. It felt too much like-”

“Gossip Girl?”

Now it’s his turn to narrow his eyes, but Blair just stares back at him steadily and his glare softens quickly.

“Right,” he says. Finally dropping the sugar and pushing his rapidly cooling coffee away untouched, he picks up a croissant and takes a bite. “If the next book I write for myself flops, so be it. But if it's successful under a pen name then people might go looking for the author, and I kind of hate the idea of people on another hunt for me. You know?”

His expression is open and still soft as he speaks so Blair just tilts her head a little further, listening. But the movement seems to catch his eye, because something shutters in his gaze and he chokes out a bitter, startling laugh. She tries to follow his line of sight as his eyes flick to down to her hands and away again, but he's already looking resolutely at anything except her.

“What am I talking about,” he mutters, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “Of course you do.”

Confused, Blair just stares at him some more until it finally clicks in the back of her mind. She puts down her chocolate and mirrors Humphrey by fiddling with her pastries. “Oh. The French papers made it over here then, did they?”

He pulls a face, looking askance at her like she’s gone mad. “Are you kidding?”

“I didn't realise you'd learnt French after college, and why would I kid about the European press?” Blair asks, honestly confused as she breaks her croissants into small, bite sized pieces.

“I didn't. The papers here were all over it, too,” he replies, still eyeing her like she’s the strange one as she pretends to be blasé and pops pieces of pastry in her mouth one by one. When she doesn’t react appropriately enlightened by that statement, his tone takes a turn towards exasperation. “You’re Blair Waldorf. He’s Chuck Bass. You had a high profile wedding in New York. Twice. Chuck still owns the Empire even if he’s never around anymore, and I’m guessing Waldorf Designs will never shut their New York office no matter where you or your mother flit off to. That,” he says, waving a hand at her ringless left hand, “made huge headlines here. In the gossip rags, anyway, as did your being beseiged by reporters in Paris.”

“Huh. I didn’t realise,” she says as she chews thoughtfully and purses her lips. It’s not as good as pastry in Paris, of course. But it’s close, and there's other benefits to eating her croissants here rather than there.

“Oh, no way. I don’t believe this,” Humphrey declares loudly enough to make her jump, leaning in and closing the gap between them again with enthusiasm. He grins broadly at her, utterly unrestrained, and she didn't know before she saw it but she's missed that smile. “There is absolutely no way that Blair Waldorf wasn’t watching every news cycle like a hawk, no matter the country.”

Blair gives in to laughter so bright it feels like a weight is lifting off her shoulders. “As if I don’t have better things to do these days,” she says archly. She raises her nose overly high in the air before breaking into another chuckle that Humphrey echoes as she throws back the last of her drink and grabs one last piece of her mutilated croissants. Standing, she hesitates as she considers Humphrey for a long moment. “Dan,” she finally says decisively, enjoying the way his face goes blank with surprise. “I think it’s time we grab a proper drink and discuss our next step.”

“Just like that?” he asks, but he’s already standing up as well and reaching for his coat.

“We’ll need to work out a schedule. My time is, of course, still infinitely more precious than yours. My assistant will let you know when I have unexpected gaps in my day so you can drop by,” Blair continues blithely, ignoring his question completely. “I want you available as frequently as possible. If we put our heads down, I’m sure we can avoid this delaying my other commitments while also making sure we produce a finish product in a reasonable timeframe. Clarence seems to think speed is crucial, so we’ll have to work hard. Maybe even pull a few late nights together, though I’m sure you remember how I feel about my beauty rest.”

“Spending day and night at your beck and call is just what I always wanted,” Dan drawls as they make their way towards the door. The look on his face is comfortable and familiar even as he gives her an exaggerated, leering wink. Suddenly it doesn’t feel like almost a decade since Blair has walked these streets, or haunted these bars and coffee shops.

“Don’t be disgusting,” Blair scolds as they reach the exit. Though she nods approvingly when he opens the door and waves her through before him with an exaggerated bow.

She ignores the way he startles outside when she loops her arm through his and begins walking. He only stumbles a little to catch up, and he eventually falls into pace with her without a word.

“That way,” she says, pointing towards the nearest intersection. “I think I remember a quiet little bar only a few blocks from here where we shouldn't be overheard.”

*

Drinks turn into dinner turn into eating ice cream on the floor of Blair’s hotel suite with scribbled pages of notes spread around them in glorious disarray.

“Sometimes I do think about just walking away from all the drama,” Blair admits after a long debate on how fabulous is too fabulous and the marketability of claiming to want a normal life. They can't agree on whether adhering to common fictional archetypes has any place in telling the story of her unique life. Blair has ended up flat on her back where she’d fallen in an exaggerated swoon of frustration in the middle of the argument.

Her ice cream carton has long since been discarded somewhere to the side where she can no longer see it, and it's probably soaking through the cardboard by now with her luck. She should really move. It might stain, and this is exactly why she always insists on eating with proper crockery instead of like savages. It’s all Dan’s fault, clearly.

“Sorry," she says with a sigh. "That doesn’t help with the book, does it? Probably not very compatible with the Waldorf brand. Oh, and I’m still not going to let you write something ridiculous about me wanting to be the girl next door. I absolutely do not, never have, and never will.”

She waits for him to correct her again. To say it’s ‘the girl in the next expensive apartment who’s happy to swap her Prada handbag for arthouse films’ and how that’s completely different. As if she’d let him write it regardless.

“Don’t be sorry,” Dan says quietly instead. When Blair lets her head loll to the side so she can look at him, she finds him pensive and dark eyed as he watches her. “It’s just hard to reconcile with the girl I knew.”

Blair huffs an amused breath out through her nose and enjoys watching him visibly gather his courage.

“What changed?” he asks after a long, loaded moment, once it’s clear she doesn’t plan to say anything.

“I grew up?” she replies tentatively, but that doesn’t feel right either so Blair just smacks him on the arm and and turns back to contemplating the ceiling. “You're one to talk. Besides, it’s not like I’d ever really act on it.”

“Of course,” he says, like that’s obvious. As though, even after the hellfire and brimstone that’s closed out the last decade of her life, he’s certain she’s not going anywhere. That she’s exactly where she belongs, when she doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere anymore.

She can feel the carpet brushing along the skin of her shoulders as she shrugs, and she lets the sensation anchor her as she remembers what it was like to be living in Paris six months ago and frantic from stress.

“Every morning I’d fight through a wall of reporters to get out of my home,” she continues slowly, searching her brain hard for each painstaking word. Digging deep for something to offer him, and suddenly it’s the most important thing in the world that he understand. That her confessions are true. Even if he never writes a word about them. “And every night I’d fight through another to get back in, only to find world war three in my living room. It seemed like it would never end. I’ve had to dodge the press before, obviously, but it was always for something less… mundane. It just got so twisted up. Then, when it was all over, I realised I didn't recognise the pieces well enough to put it all back together again.”

Something grips her heart when she sees Dan nod in her peripheral vision like he gets it. Like he still gets her. It resurrects a surge of impulse she thought long dead, as if she’s stepped neatly through time all the way back to when the most important thing was avoiding linking their social stars together. Only now she’s not so practised at ignoring it; hasn't spent days and days at museums and galleries together numbing herself to his proximity, or watching movies while she listens to him breathe over the phone, or running after a fantasy because reality scares her. 

Before she realises what she’s doing Blair’s sitting up and, for what feels weirdly like the first time in a very long time, she’s awkward. All elbows and knees as she closes the distance between them. Dan’s lips under hers are a surprise, even though she’s the one who made a move. Sensation shudders through her when he begins to kiss her back though, leaving her wrung out even as they press closer in desperate search for something she can’t begin to name.

“Blair,” he says when she pulls away, and his voice cracks over her name like she’s something precious and impossible all at the same time. She can’t bear it, not yet, and she doesn’t know what she was thinking.

This was just meant to be about work.

“I like this one better,” she says desperately, trying to ignore how his confusion bleeds quickly into a hard, flinty look.

She reaches past him for the first discarded outline they’d put together, fumbling around blindly for the torn off piece of paper full of glamour and drama and not a hint of her emotional reality underneath. He looks betrayed when she shoves it at him, and she can’t, she-

“That’s not what- This isn’t what I meant to- Dan,” she says helplessly when he won’t take the page from her hands. Then she repeats his name more urgently and drops the stupid piece of paper, leaning down and taking his face between her hands instead, sliding her thumbs across his cheekbones. “ _Dan_.”

He surges up at that, desperately, like he can’t stop himself. Until they’re both sitting on the floor curled around each other, legs tangled together and Blair half in Dan’s lap. But he doesn’t kiss her. He stops what feels like a heartbeat away from her, and Blair doesn’t know if she can-

She isn't sure what Dan sees in her expression, but she feels him relax beneath her. “I don’t wait around for anyone anymore,” he says warningly. But when she closes the distance between them wordlessly, he lets her. And when she presses against his chest with both hands, unbalancing him, he cradles her close and slides them both back to the floor. His hand is pressed in the small of her back and his other is tangled in her hair, and she feels caught. Safe. “I’m all in or I’m all out, Blair. That’s just how I am now.”

“I know,” she murmurs as she pulls him into another kiss, and then another. And she realises she does know. She already did, the moment she walked away from him in the restaurant. It feels like the knowledge has always been there, just waiting for her to realise it. It's engraved in her bones, heavy in her belly, anchoring her to the earth here where she’s finally home. “Me too, Dan. I am, too.”


End file.
